Doors are far more than just functional building elements - they tell stories, arouse curiosity and mark transitions. In art, they have been used for centuries as powerful symbols of new beginnings, secrets and new perspectives.
Doors as symbols in art - between reality and meaning
Doors have a special role in art: they not only stand for architecture or interior design, but above all for transitions - between inside and outside, the known and the unknown or the past and the future.
Artists use doors specifically as symbols. An open door can symbolise curiosity, hope or new possibilities, while a closed door stands for secrets, boundaries or unattainable goals. In painting, photography and modern art in particular, doors are often deliberately staged to trigger emotions or hint at stories.
In contrast to the real world, where functionality, security and design take centre stage, the door is abstracted and interpreted in art. It becomes a projection surface for thoughts, dreams and individual meanings.
It is precisely this complexity that makes doors a fascinating motif - both in a creative context and in real architecture, where they also connect spaces and characterise experiences.
From antiquity to modern times
The first images of doors, so-called 'false doors', can already be found in the ancient burial chambers of Egyptian pharaohs. They were intended to show them the right path to the afterlife. At the beginning of modernism in the late 19th century, doors in Symbolist painting symbolised access to everything that seemed supernatural and inexplicable: extreme feelings, dreams and ecstasies, but also illness, death and sin - central themes of the art movements of the time, which wanted to overcome the realistic modes of representation that had dominated up until then, which clung to the material and the external. At the beginning of the 20th century, surrealism also followed on from this concern in art and literature - 'surreal' means dreamlike or unreal and doors took on an important meaning as a symbol in the painting of the time.
Surrealist artists were concerned with expanding consciousness and questioning traditional values. The way in which reality was perceived and interpreted was scrutinised with radically unusual pictorial compositions. The image of the door as a gateway to a higher reality was a perfect fit. This symbolism inspired the well-known Belgian surrealist René Magritte in particular to create numerous expressive works depicting doors. He takes the viewer on a journey of thought with the aim of creating a new, expanded awareness of reality.
Doors in contemporary art - for example Fabian Hochscheid
In his works, the Cologne painter Fabian Hochscheid combines a love of the extremely detailed painterly tradition of the Renaissance and Baroque with the modern artistic enquiry into the deeper, 'true' essence of things. In his paintings on wood and canvas, he devotes himself to the hyper-realistic depiction of everyday objects, including doors, windows, stairs and light switches, in the manner of the old masters.
He has dedicated an entire series of paintings to the depiction of doors and explains: "The door in isolation has no special significance in my paintings, but space in its various aspects is my theme and therefore the door is given its importance. As an entrance, a door offers me the opportunity to explore the space. When closed, it offers a protective space from the outside world - but as life goes... the protection often fails." This is why the door leaf is often missing in his pictures of the door. The door opening thus allows unhindered access in both directions and becomes a mysterious threshold to unknown possibilities.
Invitation to an excursion into your own self
In the painting "Große Tür" (acrylic/oil paint on canvas, 75x85cm, 2009), Fabian Hochscheid's exquisite, detailed painting style immediately catches the eye - the work shows a section of an empty room, the shine of the floor, detailed shades of colour on the walls are depicted with very fine nuances. Light falls from an unknown source - a high window? - like a hint of a half-open, somewhat antique-looking panelled door. The scenario is realistic and at the same time, in its idealised depiction, not borrowed from the reality of our lives today. Does it come from a different, decelerated time?
The 'Great Door' is familiar to us as a pictorial memory; we may have seen it in childhood. At the same time, it invites us to discover a secret in the space behind it: it promises a journey into our own consciousness, an encounter with ourselves, a space to play and retreat into for the images of our own imagination. Fabian Hochscheid inspires here, as in many of his works, with a highly aestheticised motif that draws on everyday experiences and creates an arc of tension from the familiar into the unknown, to where the individual dream of each viewer begins...
Stolen door with street art resurfaced
You can find out more about Fabian Hochscheid and his work from the art agent Sabine Klement; you can find an insight into other works by the artist here.
A door bearing a work of art is currently causing a furore. The well-known London street artist Banksy is said to have sprayed the door of the Bataclan club in Paris with the image of a veiled woman. Ninety people died in the club following a terrorist attack in November 2015. The door with the work attributed to Banksy was stolen in January 2019 and the perpetrators later brutally cut out the artwork. Now this piece of door has reappeared in Italy and the art theft is about to be solved.
Until 26 July, you can view pictures by Fabian Hochscheid live in an exhibition. He is part of the summer exhibition in St Clemens am Rhein, which presents 60 former students of the old Cologne Werkschule.
A journey: With the door through art
